Chapter Text
Sam was tired. Tired down to the very marrow of his bones. Sleep never fixed it; not that he got much of it nowadays. Not with the constant training. It was as if his dad had flicked a switch once Sam had turned thirteen, become hellbent on shaping Sam into the solider Dean was already halfway to becoming.
The quiet never helped it. The buzzing silence of an empty motel room only made his eyes sore and gritty, for it meant waiting up for his dad and brother, on edge, a taut thing, stretched between the need to stay awake, fight back the worry, the dread of what if that always lingered in the pit of his stomach every time dad and Dean were out on a hunt, and the very real fear of what lurked out there, in the world, in the motel carpark even. Horrors beyond what Sam could truly fathom at such a young age.
Yet, he’d witnessed the disarray his dad and Dean would return in. The stench of sulphur, too thick in his nostrils, overwhelming. Just that same as the stark ribbons of blood on their skin, clothes, the steel-caps of their boots. Sometimes theirs, sometimes not.
Sam hated the sight of it either way. It turned his stomach, sickened his insides. He would never tell this to his dad. Or even Dean. Afraid to be seem as lesser for it. Weak. Small. Pitiful. Yet, it made him uneasy. The killing. The hunting. All of it.
Nothing helped dissipate the fatigue. He’d tried everything. Pretending he wasn’t exhausted, studying just to burn his over-tired eyes further, make them tear up, red and stinging. He’d tried jogging, hoping it would shift loose the thing stopping him from sleeping, jolt loose whatever kept him being so damn tired all the time. Night time jaunts that left his lungs screaming, his legs burning, unsteady underneath him. It never helped. None of it.
“You want coffee, dude?” Dean, returning from his supply run, barging into the dim, dinky little motel room dad had dropped them at before taking off, not a word of it to Sam, though Dean didn’t seem concerned so dad had obviously filled him in at same point. Sam sometimes felt like he was just tugged along, dragged against his will at times, because they had nothing better to do with him.
Dean fumbled the door shut, locking it awkwardly as he balanced a carboard cupholder holding two takeaway coffees in one hand and a large bag of groceries in the other, and fumbled awkwardly with the door.
“Thanks for the help. Appreciate it, Sammy.” A side-eye from Dean, even as he threw the plastic bag on the little kitchenette counter, then held out the coffees.
Sam didn’t bother correcting Dean on his name. He never listened anyway. Seemed a futile fight when he was balanced on a highwire of sleep-deprivation and something else, something niggling, cold. A hollow feeling right behind his lungs, nestled in his ribcage.
“Sammy!” a snap of fingers right in his face. “Take it, or I’m having both. God knows I could use the caffeine after last night.” A direct look. In the weak morning light, Dean’s eyes looked darker than usual, the corners pinched. He almost looked as tired as Sam felt.
“I said sorry.” Sam mumbled, taking the coffee. The paper cup was hot enough to burn his fingertips and he shifted it, resting it on his knee, the heat seeping through the denim.
“Yeah, yeah. What was it about anyway. The nightmare?”
“It wasn’t a nightmare.”
Couldn’t have been, Sam thought. He didn’t sleep. Not long enough to really dream. It had been the darkness that had made him cry out. Sitting up in his bed, gasping down the shadows, choking on them as they wended their way down his throat, all-consuming, filling him up with darkness and black dread.
Dean had been right beside him, swearing under his breath, but his hands had been gentle when they’d reach out for him in the dark. A steady anchor in the middle of an endless night. Sam’s cheeks heated, almost as hot as his coffee, at the memory of clinging to Dean, shuddering, gasping for breath, gripping Dean’s sleep shirt as if it were his only lifeline.
“Sure looked like it.” Dean was gulping his coffee as if it was lukewarm. Sam had a pang of guilt. He’d kept Dean up after that, saying nothing, just holding onto him like a damn child. He wasn’t a child. He was thirteen.
Sure, he wasn’t as tall as Dean or a strong as dad… but he wasn’t a baby.
“Just forget it, Dean.” The sip he took of his own coffee scalded the tip of his tongue, but it kept his attention busy, off Dean and the shrewd look he was directing at Sam.
Sighing, Dean sucked in his cheeks, displeased, Sam knew. “Yeah, okay. I got you more cereal, that sugary shit you like. So,” he left the rest silent, but gestured to the bag over-full of groceries.
Sam pretended not to notice the fact that Dean went out of his way to get the over-priced cereal, and, he noted later that morning: fresh milk, one of the small ones that did a few bowls of cereal and a couple cups of coffee and nothing more. He ate his cereal while Dean tended to his weapons, cleaning, sharpening, the shwick shwick and click click as he worked better than dead silence.
Dad returned the next evening when the sky was bruising purple, rain clouds threatening. A chill breeze blew inside as he entered. Sam thought he felt a speck of rain land on his forearm before the door was shut and locked.
“How’d it go?” Dean was sitting up straight on his bed, having been sprawled a moment later flicking idly through rather unsavoury magazines, of which he surreptitiously slipped under the edge of his pillow as dad dropped the impala keys on the bench with a clatter and shucked out of his jacket.
He didn’t say a word, only sighed. Dad and Dean had that in common, they sighed a lot. Apparently, Dean was fluent in sighing, for he pulled a face, furrowing up his brow. “Bad?”
“Bad.” Dad agreed. Flicked a brief glance at Sam; perched on his own bed, book held loosely in his hands, pages fanned out, forgotten. Sam saw only a glimpse of it, the fleeting, fragile look his dad gave him, as if he was afraid to stare too long at Sam and be unravelled. Caught out.
Sam saw the unease. The spark of cold fear. Hot adrenaline.
Bad was an understatement. So, when dad said, “Pack your things, we’re leaving tonight. You hear me?”
Sam wasn’t surprised, only mildly disappointed at having to uproot yet again. This time they’d barely made it a week. It was getting sparser and sparser, the time they spent in places. Sam had missed the first half of the new term this year. Barely caught a few weeks of the second term. He’d stopped begging to stay put long enough to actually complete the school year.
He’d be behind a grade at this rate. Though, Dean assured him he wasn’t an idiot and wouldn’t be held back, Sam thought Dean might’ve been wrong about that. The held back bit, that is. Not Sam not being an idiot. Dean hardly cared about academics.
Sam wished he could be that simple. Black and white.
“Yessir.” Dean hushed; voice low. Deeper now that he was seventeen. Or maybe it had been that way for a while, Sam couldn’t remember when it changed. But it made him feel like the odd one out, soft voiced, whereas dad and Dean were not.
Still, he nodded, quietly adding, “Yes, sir.” When his dad sent him an expectant look.
Dean was dads solider. Dad said jump, Dean asked how high. Sam almost mistook the crawling, sly thing worming through his gut as nausea from too much cereal. It wasn’t. He knew this. Hated himself for it too, that bite of envy. Longing for something even slightly close to what dad and Dean had.
Dean respected dad. Sam would go so far as to say idolised. And dad respected Dean, didn’t say it, maybe never would, but Sam saw it in the soft way his dad sometimes looked at Dean when Dean wasn’t aware. Sam had never caught dad looking at him like that.
He shifted on the bed, watching as Dean shoved clothes into his pack, already jumping to action. Closing his book, Sam started on his pack, folding his clothes. He had to, or else his small collection of books wouldn’t fit in too.
Dad was quiet as they packed. Edgy, though. Checking the window three, four, five times. A sixth. Which is when Sam threw caution to the wind.
“Is something coming?” he asked, pinching the tag of his zip between his finger and thumb, struggling to close his pack despite it being neat and as orderly as he could make it.
The curtains fluttered, dad didn’t turn away, didn’t answer. And normally that would be that. Sam would huff and go back to his task at hand. But he felt restless. Upheaved, again. He felt pissed off and so Goddamn tired.
He didn’t care if dad threw him a dirty look or raised his voice.
“Did you mess up the hunt?”
And that did it. Sam saw his dads back stiffen, shoulder blades tightening, the hitch of his breath, surprised perhaps by the heat in Sam’s voice. The tone.
Dean paused, his pack held in one hand, and gave Sam a quick widening of his eyes. Warning him to shut the hell up. It was too late though, Sam knew it, Dean knew it.
Dad turned around, his dark eyebrows furrowed in the way he had about him, serious, frustrated. “What was that?” he asked and there was nothing but gravel in his voice.
Sam’s throat felt dry. His hands busied themselves trying to close the zip of his pack the rest of the way. He swallowed but couldn’t quite keep his gaze on his dad.
“You heard me.” He said when he should have shaken his head and said nothing at all.
“Sammy,” Dean started to say.
“Louder, Sam, I didn’t quite hear you.”
Sam’s stomach quivered, threatening to drop right out of him. It didn’t matter how many times he saw his dad angry; it always unnerved him. Made him feel small and meek and wrong. Like he’d lost the fight the moment it had started.
“Nothing, dad,” Dean jumped in to speak for Sam. “He’s tired,” you’ve no idea, Sam thought. “Cranky,” Dean added with a one-shouldered shrug. “You know how he gets.”
That did it. Sam saw the look his dad and brother shared, as if Sam were the odd one out, the one they talked about behind his back, the black sheep. He felt it. Couldn’t always place why, but in moments like this, when dad and Dean were sharing in the fact that Sam was a pain in the ass, saying it all in the span of a glance, it riled him up. Made him feel sick and hot and like he might cry or scream.
Instead, he lifted his chin, steeling his nerves and hoping his voice didn’t betray him and crack or falter or come out pathetically weak and said, “I asked you if you fucked up?” the curse word felt electric in his mouth, a static thing falling from his tongue. Bitter and sweet, a filthy, naughty thing that made his pulse hammer behind the skin of his throat. Sam’s palms prickled with sweat. He heard the hum of the janky heater in the silence that followed.
Felt his bravado retreating as the quiet stretched longer, a fickle thing, leaving his tongue dry and shrivelled. He didn’t need to look at Dean to know he was frowning, shoulders slumped. It was all he could do to keep his eyes on dad, who took slow, too-slow, creeping-heel-toe-steps towards where Sam stood rooted to the spot, pack held between his hands.
“I-I, I didn’t… I mean… I s-shouldn’t have said –”
A solid backhand across his cheek. The blow knocked his head to the side sharply, made his ears ring. His pack dropped heavy at his feet. Sam felt the burn of tears at the corners of his eyes, unmanning him, a sudden crack in his façade. Shameful. Adding insult to injury.
More silence, just the slow, too-slow, purposefully-slow breathing of his dad in front of him. The clank of the heater shutting off. And Sam’s hitching, uneven breaths that he drew quickly in through his nose, hating how close to tears he was.
It hadn’t even been the hit that had done it, though that had been a surprise, an abrupt pain that bloomed swiftly and faded just as fast. It was the way his dad was staring at him, equal parts disappointed and pissed off. Nothing else. No remorse. Nothing Sam could latch onto to ease the ache starting up behind his ribs.
Dead quiet from Dean’s corner. Sam felt the slicing hurt of that down his middle, as if he’d been gutted. He bit the inside of his bottom lip, hard. Hiding the tremble of it. Biting back the urge to just let go of his composure and cry.
He didn’t want to do that though. Not with dad so close, angry and smelling of sulphur and gunpowder, eyes gleaming just a little too darkly. Lips thinned. Sam knew not to test his boundaries any further. Regretted doing so in the first place.
“We’re leaving in five.” Dad said, scrubbing his knuckles across the stubble on his jaw as if scratching an itch. Sam knew he only did it when he was stressed. Sort of like Dean would crack his knuckles or roll his shoulders.
Sam lowered his eyes, blinking just a little too fast to be subtle, and muttered, “Yes, sir.” Obedience. That’s what John Winchester expected of his boys. That’s what Sam gave him.
The impala smelled of leather and motor oil. It was, in a strange way, comforting. A familiar scent. The familiar rumble of the engine, the thrum of it through the seats, the blurring swish of the scenery outside the window; darkened by nightfall, the sky deepening to a muddy blue-black now, the purple seeping away.
Sam watched the sky until it became black. Cloudless, the pinprick stars looked faraway, weak-lit. The moon was hiding.
The radio was murmuring from the front, soft voices, then a jingle of some ad for car insurance. Dean muttered something about where they’d be staying, low-voiced. Dad just grunted, non-committal. Sam frowned out the window, his forehead tipped against the cold glass, skull buzzing with the vibration. A pleasant distraction. He shut his eyes, not sleeping, not stupid enough to think he’d be able to even with the heaviness in his eyelids making his eyes feel hazy and unfocused.
Instead, he pretended he was very little. Four or five. Curled up in the back seat of the impala. Listening to dad and Dean talk mindlessly. Hushed conversations. Pointless. The static sound of the radio. And he pretended he was little and safe and nothing was expected of him. He could sleep soundly, oblivious to the horrors of the reality of their lives.
He hated being thirteen. Hated it, because dad had turned into his drill sergeant and Dean expected him to measure up to him in too many ways to count. And Sam was tired. And scared. And he hated that he was those things instead of strong and brave and ready to fight.
Dean sighed from the passenger seat, Sam heard the creak of the leather seat as Dean shifted, another sigh, softer. Then, “Did you have to hit him so hard?”
Sam’s stomach tightened up, a crumpled thing inside him, twisted and knotted and his lungs seemed to forget how they were supposed to work and he found himself unable to breathe. Because Dean never challenged dad. Never spoke out of turn. Never went against dad.
“Dean,” gruff. Though not as displeased as Sam was expecting from dad. He sounded tired, too.
“C’mon, Dad. You know he acts up ‘bout these things. He hates moving. You didn’t need to hit him.”
“You heard him.” Dad said as if that explained it all. As if it gave him any credibility in back-handing his son. Sam’s throat felt clogged up. His chest ached. Did dad even care? At all? Even a little bit? “He knows better than to speak to me that way.”
“He’s thirteen.” Dean said, as if that explained away Sam’s defiance. “He’s bratty at the best of times, but you know how it can be at that age.”
“Mmh.” Dad wasn’t budging.
Sam heard the indicator flick on, tick tick tick. They made a right turn. Light flickered over Sam’s closed eyelids, red, black, red. Another swing of the impala and they came to a stop.
“Here?” Dean was saying with something like incredulity in his tone.
“Here.” Dad agreed and killed the engine. “It’s out of the way.”
“Yeah. I’d say. It’s probably full of sickos and weirdos too.” A slight pause. Sam thought he heard a door slam somewhere nearby. Dean scoffed. “Nah, it definitely is.”
“Keep an eye on your brother, I’ll get us a room. It’s just for one night.”
The creak of the drivers’ side door, the jangle of keys, then the gentle rock of the car when his dad slammed the door shut. Sam pretended to stay asleep. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to Dean. Not after his comment. Off-handed. As if dad and him shared such remarks about Sam often.
Bratty? Sam’s nostrils tickled, his eyes stung with warmth and he hoped no tears would leak out and betray him. It wasn’t even the worst thing Dean had said about him; he mocked Sam’s height – or lack thereof – all the time. He commented on Sam’s hair, how if he didn’t cut it, he’d start looking like a girl. Stupid insults, sure. But yet a single word had hurt more. Bratty.
Curling his toes in his boots, Sam breathed carefully through his nose, temple pressed hard up against the window, his shoulder ached from the position, but he didn’t want to open his eyes. Dean was mostly quiet as he waited, shifting occasionally in his seat, fiddling with something, tapping his foot. Impatient. Then dad was back, knocking on the window. Sam pretended to be roused by it, sitting up straighter in the back seat.
“Room 3. Grab the stuff from the trunk.”
“You heard the man.” Dean was climbing out the car even before dad had made it out of eyeshot. “C’mom, Sammy, hurry it up.”
The darkness was inside of him. A coil of pitch and shadow. The twining twist of it between the cracks of his ribcage. And Sam was gasping, coughing up the blackness, inhaling wetly, full-up, laid-flat, his back heaving against the drenched sheet, his throat dry. He didn’t cry out. Just swallowed at the darkness around him, breathing shakily, half-afraid to move, listening to the swish of cars outside the motel room. Dad and Dean’s even, calm breaths as they slept.
Sam must have slept at some point. Knew he had, because the shadows in the small room looked different, shifted. Time had crept incrementally by. It was well past midnight. Maybe very early morning. Dawn wasn’t yet here. Sam sniffed back an involuntary hiccup, a hitching breath that he hoped wouldn’t wake dad or Dean. The last thing he needed was them to see him like this, trembling and drenched in a cold sweat and… Sam felt his face heat, a sudden flush of it right across his cheeks and down his neck and oh no. No. Not now. Why now?
His heart thudded in his chest, not from fright now, but embarrassment. He shifted carefully on the mattress, feeling the wet drag of his sleep shorts against his skin. The heaviness of them. The warmth.
“Sammy,” Dean’s voice, low with the weight of sleep. He rolled over in his single bed, squinting in the darkness. “You good?”
“Fine. Go back to sleep.” Don’t get up. Please don’t get up. I can’t have you see me like this! It’s too embarrassing.
“You sure you’re good?” Dean sounded less sleepy now. He always shook it off quickly. Just like dad did. It just seemed to fall away, discarded on the pillow, left behind as they jumped into action. Sam supposed the way they lived was reason enough for it. You had to be alert. Always.
“Yea-ah.” The word came out cracked. Hitched up and dropped. Much like Sam’s breath. He winced, trying to pull his blanket over himself, groping blindly for it even as he heard the distinct sound of Dean’s mattress dipping.
“Hey,” soft-voiced this time. Sam hated it. Hated the way he wanted to crawl into Dean’s arms like he used to do when he was younger. Safe. Held.
“I’m fine, Dean. Seriously.” Hard-edged. Sam hoped Dean took the hint and left him alone.
“Yeah, sure, dude. Fine.” Dean sounded irritated, though Sam wasn’t entirely sure it was him that had caused it. He managed to get a grip on his blanket and hauled it up to his chin just as Dean leaned over his bed. In the dimness Sam could just make out the spikey mess of his hair, the sharp jawline.
“Dean,” Sam wasn’t sure what he was going to say. What he really wanted to do was bury himself under the covers, shut his eyes real tight, hold his breath low in his lungs, and feel the humid heat of his body stifle up the little cave and press in on his skin. Secure. Hidden.
“Sammy, what the fuck.”
Crap.
“Hold on,” Dean was plucking at Sam’s blanket now, insistent even as Sam clutched it close to his chest.
“Go away, Dean!” louder than was probably wise with dad not far off. Sharp. High-pitched. Sam felt his face warm further, a red-blaze across his skin that only worsened when Dean wrestled the blanket out of his hands and threw it to the floor.
“Oh, Sammy,” and it wasn’t mocking. Wasn’t mean. Wasn’t upset or angry or even disappointed. It was so gently said that Sam felt his brow crumple up, felt the quiver of his mouth, the sudden tears that he couldn’t even begin to hold back.
“I didn’t mean too, De.” Small-voiced. Sam hated it. Hated himself in that sharp, crystal-clear moment.
“It’s okay,” Dean told him, crouching down by the side of the bed. “Happens.” He added, off-handed, casual. As if it was a common occurrence for Sam to wet the bed. God, he’d never wet the bed! Not once. Even when he was little.
And now, at thirteen he’d gone and made a mess of his shorts and the sheet and, “I’m sorry, s-s-sorry,” he whispered, mortified. Slamming his palms over his face, breathing in the heat of them, sniffling like a little kid and all he wanted was for the ground to open up below his bed and swallow him whole. Wet bed and all.
“Hey, stand up for me for a sec, yeah?”
Sam didn’t want to. He wanted to ignore Dean’s soft words. Nothing-words. Feeble. Cracked. Ashes in the night. He wanted to pretend this wasn’t happening. But Dean’s fingers were around one of his wrists, looped gently, then tugging, trying to leverage Sam up and out of his bed.
“C’mon, dude, up. Unless you like laying in your own piss.”
Sam made a noise in the back of his throat. It was supposed to sound annoyed. Maybe even a little mad. Instead, it sounded liquid and lost and so damn far from any of the other things that he threw off Dean’s grip, swung his legs over the side of the bed, unsteady as he stood, disoriented from the dark room and the hot embarrassment sitting stale and hard in his body and dashed for the little bathroom.
He caught himself before he slammed the door, mindful enough that he was able to close it as softly as his shaking hands would allow, drew the lock with a sharp metal sound, and crunched himself up on the ground, hugging his knees and trying to pretend that he didn’t feel the cooling wetness of his shorts, damp against his groin and hips.
Dean didn’t try and coax him out. Didn’t knock or speak through the door at Sam. Sam heard the shucking sounds of the sheet being stripped, the fwump of pillows thrown to the floor, and he buried his head in his arms, breathing very carefully, in through his nose, out through his mouth, and tried very hard to calm the shifting, coiling thing within him.
He wanted to cry. He didn’t.
He got up a little while later, after Dean had gone back to his bed and the room beyond the bathroom door was silent, and dragged off his t-shirt and slipped into the shower, turning the heat on all the way, just a hint of cold, and let it beat down at him, drenching his shorts and washing away his shame.
The next morning, like clockwork, they were on the move again. Dean said nothing to Sam as they packed their bags up, though Sam caught his side-eye look, a glance and nothing more, as they both hauled the packs to the impala. Dad was tense, holding his shoulders stiffly, solemn-eyed and prickly. Even Dean seemed to give the man more space than usual.
Nothing was said about Sam’s stripped bed. Though dad had given it a suspicious once over when he woke up, eyeing Sam carefully from under his furrowed brow, Sam pretended not to notice, nose in his book, hardly reading at all, though. He thought he heard Dean whisper something in dad’s ear as they were leaving the room.
“He’s at that age, Dad, you know how it is.”
And dad replied with a grunt.
Sam wasn’t stupid. He knew what Dean was implying. Knew, too, he wouldn’t say a word against it, because the alternative – the truth of it – was far more humiliating than his dad believing he was being a randy teenager.
The drive to the next town was quiet. Sam couldn’t look at Dean. Dean wouldn’t stop trying to catch his eye. Dad was oblivious, focused, or distracted, or a bit of both, Sam didn’t care. Sam had a headache and was exhausted.
Their next stop wasn’t another motel. Sam peered out the window, watching his breath fog against the morning-chilled glass, and beyond the wet haze was Bobby’s junk yard, the wrecks looked grey in the overcast gloom. Sam wondered just how in-deep they were for dad to be rocking up at Bobby’s out of the blue. No warning. They’d practically sprinted here.
The impala came to a stop, the engine cutting off just as Bobby came out to greet them, concern mixed with his half-smile, as if he wasn’t sure what to make of the three Winchesters arriving just after dawn.
“Need a place to stay,” Dad said as way of greeting, climbing out the car with a grunt and clapping Bobby on the shoulder. “I’ll fill you in.”
“Sure thing.” Bobby didn’t question it. Sam would have. He wanted to. He didn’t get why Bobby just accepted it at face value. Dean, too. Letting John Winchester call the shots and blindly following along for the ride.
“Dean,” Bobby was saying, drawing Dean into his side in a one-armed hug. Quick. Effective. Dean grinned back, as tall as Bobby almost. It had been a while since they last saw the man. A year or more, maybe. “Sam.” Sam smiled up at Bobby as he got out the backseat. “You’ve grown.” Noted the older man.
Sam rolled his eyes. He hadn’t grown. They both knew it. He’d be lucky if he’d gained an inch since last seeing Bobby. But the man didn’t mean anything by it. He wasn’t having a dig like Dean sometimes would. Or sizing him up with a frown like dad would do.
Bobby ruffled his hair, quick as the hug he’d given Dean, and jerked his head to the front door. “Let’s get in outta this Goddamn cold. I’m freezing my fingers off.”
Inside was warmer. Dad said something about setting the packs up in the spare room, expecting it done, a thinly veiled excuse to get Dean and Sam out of earshot.
“Why?” Sam said, stopped in the doorway to the living room, gripping the doorframe in one hand. Dean paused by the front door, giving Sam a very direct shake of his head. Sam swallowed thickly, turned his back on Dean, facing his dad with a lift of his chin. Daring.
“Because I said so, that’s why.” Dad wasn’t having it this morning. But neither was Sam.
“If we’re running away from something we should know, Dean and I. You can’t just lug us around and not tell us anything.”
A buzzing silence. Bobby looked like he wanted to interrupt it and blurt something out to break the tension. Sam kind of wished he would. Or that Dean would speak up, like last time, when Sam was foolish enough to speak out against his dad. Foolish and then struck by a hard back-handed slap.
Sam flinched visibly when dad approached, two slow steps forward, and Sam hated himself for it. Hated the quick intake of breath, the shiver through his knees. He dug his fingernails into the wooden doorframe, holding his ground despite every atom in his body urging him to turn tail and run.
“Enough of that, Sam.” Dad wasn’t happy. His voice pitched low. Not angry. Warning, though. Don’t step out of line, or else, that’s what his narrow-eyed look said. Sam felt a flutter of something rebellious in his stomach, a shy thing, cold and wriggling and he huffed. Bratty, said Dean’s voice in his head.
Yet, he couldn’t stop himself. “You don’t even know what’s after us, do you? That’s why we’re here, so Bobby can help you figure it out. You messed up big time and now you’re running scared and you won’t even tell us why!” his voice got louder as he spoke, a fervent thing in the otherwise quiet room.
Sam teetered on the threshold, glaring up at his dad, angry now. Lost. Left out. And then dad hit him again, not with his hands this time, but with two little words, coldly said, dismissive.
“Dean knows.” A firm look at Sam. Dean know, he knows it all, or at least more than you. Is what Sam heard behind the clipped words.
“What about me?” Sam didn’t try to hide the way his voice wavered. Timid sounding despite the flare of his nostrils and the grit of his teeth. He didn’t want to hear the answer. He thought he might already know it.
Because you’re not as strong as Dean.
Because you aren’t important enough to know our plans.
Because you’re a liability.
Because you’re not my favourite. You never will be. You’re not a good soldier. You’re not a good son.
Instead, he got a long sigh from his dad, “When you’re older,” he began to say and Sam could have spat at him. He’d heard the same argument too many times in the past year. The same spiel. The same reluctance on his dad’s behalf to include Sam in anything other than the small glimpses John Winchester allowed him to see.
And sure, Sam hated their life, the hunting, the ghosts and creatures and the sulphuric, ghastly, forsaken reality of it all, but he put up with it, he tried to be a good son, a good boy, to become the man his dad wanted him to be.
He trained until his bones ached, muscles gone numb with exhaustion. He studied and learned things like gun safety, how to shoot, how to clean all types of weapons, he listened, even if no one thought he did, he did. He tried so hard and none of them saw it.
“I’m thirteen!” he said, aware how high his voice sounded, the catch of his breath. A contradiction. Embarrassing. But Sam forged ahead. “I’m not a child anymore and you can’t keep leaving me out of things! I’m not weak.”
“Sammy, no one thinks you’re weak.” Dean, now, coming up behind him, flicking a cautious glance in their father’s direction, then back to Sam, willing him with his eyes alone to shut the hell up, Sammy.
Sam threw his head, tossing his hair out of his face with an aggravated noise. “It’s always on your terms,” he directed it at dad, seething words, hot over his teeth. “Do this. Do that. Whatever the fuck you want us to do, we do!”
“Sam.” A snap of Dean’s voice, rough-edged. Sam shook off Dean’s fingers when they tried to grab his bicep, tried to intercept and stop the vile spillage of words from his little brother, tried to staunch the overflow of Sam’s uncertainty and anger, desperately attempting to be the buffer between Sam and John and Sam wanted to turn on Dean for it.
To scream at him about how unfair it all was. How stupid it was that they could never speak out against their dad yet everyone spoke out against Sam. Dad most of all.
“Dude, stop.” Sam did turn at that, pinning Dean with a wet glare, acutely aware of the utter lack of sound from his dad and Bobby. The spit and hiss of the fireplace. The way the floor creaked under Dean’s boots when he stepped closer to Sam, opening his mouth to say something. Didn’t matter what. Because Sam didn’t want to hear it.
“Fuck off, Dean.” Naughty, mean. Sam felt a pang of guilt when Dean blinked at him, taken aback, a line appearing between his eyebrows.
And then, all at once, dad was in motion, storming towards Sam, a look of thunder on his face. His eyes darkened to black, not demonic black, just anger, plain and simple and Sam was suddenly very aware of his behaviour, his anger draining from his numb fingertips, gone. Leaving him pale and cold and then his dad grabbed him by the shoulders, a vice-like grip, fingers digging painfully into Sam’s upper arms.
“The hells the matter with you, boy?” gritted through the gnash of his teeth. Sam saw the specks of spittle collecting on his dad’s bottom lip. Saw the tight lines of his face, the grit of his stubble, heard Dean saying something, meaningless words, fickle-things, then Sam was being spun around, shoved roughly up against the living room wall, cheek pressed tight to the wallpaper, held by the back of his neck and quite abruptly struck across his backside.
A sharp, stinging strike that left him balking, open-mouthed, soundless, holding himself very still, as a mice might when cornered by a savage barn cat. Another hit, firm across his bottom. Sam’s face flamed, too hot, scorching down his spine, a tightening of his muscles and he made to wrench himself away, refusing to be spanked like some disobedient toddler.
He was held fast, however, caught between the wall and his dad’s strength and hit again. And then a fourth time.
“Dad,” Dean’s voice, unsure. Reproachful.
“If he’s going to act like a damn toddler, he’ll be punished like one.” Dad said, gravel and grit and Sam endured another hit to his backside, the hot, shameful stinging of his rump.
He choked on his breath. Choked on the lump vaulting up into his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, curling his hands into fists against the wall, so embarrassed he could feel his heartbeat in his temples, feel it thrumming in his neck, deafening in his ears.
One last hit. Sam hardly felt it. Barely felt his dad let go of the nape of his neck. His cheeks were flushed and wet with tears and Sam heard his dad step back, roll his shoulders.
“Get up to the room. I don’t want to see you until dinner time, you got it?”
Sam nodded, trying to swallow down the rest of his tears, trying to sniffle away the snot that he felt tickling his upper lip. He drew the back of his wrist across his nose and mouth, smearing the mess no doubt, blinking through the hot wash of his tears at his dad’s frowning face.
“Out loud, Sam.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go.”
Sam went. Pushing past a stricken Dean. Not looking to see whether Bobby was watching him, because he couldn’t handle that. Not looking back to see if dad was still angry or if he looked like he regretted the humiliation of his son at all.
Sam threw the door shut when he reached the spare room, careless of the noise it made. Enjoying the snapping thump of wood against wood. Wanting to scream obscenities at his dad, to throw a punch even. Right at his dad’s mouth, a smash of his knuckles against his teeth. There was a creak of floorboards outside the room and Sam’s heart stuttered, and despite the hot anger and mortified tears, he paused, holding his breath, twisting the hem of his t-shirt in his hands, until whoever was outside the room moved on, a steady groan of the old floor.
It was much later, when the small bedroom window showed the yellowing of the sky, afternoon settling around the junkyard, a warm stripe of it falling across Sam’s bed, brightening the pages of the book he was reading, that there came a knock on the bedroom door, three quick rapping knocks.
Sam peered up, waiting. Three more. “Yeah?” he called out, confused.
The door cracked open and Dean’s face peeked around it. His gaze flicked around the room before it landed on Sam, a hitch of his eyebrows.
“What?” Sam asked.
“You good?” Casual. As if he hadn’t witnessed Sam get his arse smacked in the middle of Bobby’s living room.
Sam shrugged one shoulder, pretending for his own sanity that he was unbothered, unembarrassed, calm and collected, and most of all reading. He looked back down at his book, one of Bobby’s old ones actually. Half of it was Latin. Some of it English. He wasn’t making much sense of it, but the inked symbols and drawings were creepily interesting.
“Good book?” Sam didn’t look up from the blur of the Latin on the page, but he heard Dean shuffle further into the room, heard, too, the soft click of the door closing.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“So how come your eyes aren’t moving?”
“Huh?” Sam looked up now, annoyed, lifting his hand to brush away a few strands of errant hair that wanted to fall into his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You’re not reading, Sammy. You’re just staring at the same spot.”
“It’s Latin.”
“So?”
“So, it’s hard to read. I can’t read it. I’m just looking at the illustrations mostly.”
Dean shrugged. Sam smoothed back his hair again, returning to his book. Or the guise of reading anyhow. He was intensely aware of Dean moving to stand by his bed. Silent. Staring.
“What?” Sam snapped, dropping the old book onto the bed with a thump and fixing Dean with what dad would probably describe as a ‘pissy’ look. Sam didn’t care. Maybe he was pissed off.
“Listen,” Dean started to say and Sam knew where it was going by his older brothers’ downcast eyes, the awkward way Dean angled himself down onto the bed, perched half off the edge, as if he wasn’t sure if the floor wouldn’t be more comfortable, or as if he was ready to dash for the door the moment things got sappy.
Sam was almost amused. Though, at the forefront was just plain humiliation. He shook his head, a quick back and forth, as if warning Dean, “Can we not talk about it, please?”
Dean’s jaw pulsed. Sam wondered if he was gritting his teeth out of irritation or hesitation. “He shouldn’t have done that to you, Sammy, you know that right?”
“Dean, please, it’s bad enough Bobby saw it, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, okay,” placating. Sam wasn’t fooled. Dean turned more fully towards him, shifting his thigh up on the mattress to get comfy. “Did he hurt you?”
“No!” heat seeped up over his face despite Sam’s best effort to remain unbothered. God, couldn’t Dean see how utterly mortifying this whole situation was? Sam wasn’t even sure how he was going to go down for dinner and face Bobby. Or his dad.
“He was pretty rough with you,”
“I’m fine, Dean. Just drop it.”
“He doesn’t mean to be so hard on you.”
“Yeah, he does.” Sam muttered, quiet-voiced. He itched his nose with the back of his hand, picked at the fraying edge of the cloth-bound book, sniffed away the lingering itch.
“Yeah, you’re right. He does. But he’s doing it for your own good, Sammy.” Dean pressed.
Sam threw him a filthy look. “Don’t call me that.”
“He’s cooled off, but play it safe when you come down later, okay? Just don’t tread on his toes and you’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Dean sighed. Sam sniffed again, busying himself by flipping back through the book, trying to find where he’d been up to. The bed frame clunked when Dean stood up.
“You need anything?”
“For you to leave.” Sam bit out, venomous. Foul-mouthed, pouting. He didn’t shy from it. His pride was wounded. His arse tanned in front of them all. Sam felt violated and pissed off and he couldn’t say a damn thing to his dad but Dean was here and Sam knew he was misplacing his ire, but he couldn’t rein it in.
“Mind dad doesn’t catch anymore of that attitude. I can wear it, Sam. I don’t mind. I get it, even. But play nice with dad. The last thing we need right now is to be at each other’s throats.”
The door shut behind Dean a moment later. Sam listened to his footsteps down the hall. Tried very hard not to let his lips tremble, to swallow down the angry tears. He wasn’t a baby. He wouldn’t cry.
And he wouldn’t go down for dinner. His churning stomach couldn’t handle it. At least that’s what he told himself.
It was dark by the time the bedroom door opened. Sam had been lying on his side, blanket cocooned around him, snug and warm and very much unable to sleep. His mind still turning over the events of the day. His body restless from a day of idleness.
“You awake, Sam?” Dean whispered into the dark room, socked-feet shuffling across the floor with a gentle swish of sound.
“Mmh.”
“You hungry?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Bullshit. Here.” A groping hand knocking into Sam’s shoulder, then the savoury smell of bacon and bread and the acidic tang of tomato. “Sandwich.” Dean told him. A crinkle as the messily wrapped sandwich was placed down near Sam’s head.
It smelled amazing. He’d not eaten all day, couped up in the room as he’d been, seething and stewing.
“You can turn on the light, you know?” Sam hushed as he listened to Dean fumble around in the dark room.
Then a flare of bright orange light from the lamp beside Dean’s bed. Sam blinked a few times to adjust to it.
“How’s dad?”
Dean pretended he didn’t hear the break of Sam’s voice, which Sam was quietly thankful for. “He’s alright. Busy with Bobby now.”
“Is he still mad?”
“Nah,” Dean pulled off his t-shirt. Sam looked away from the ripple of his abdomen. He didn’t need that bite of jealousy right now. His own stomach grumbled; a pang of hunger brought on by the smell of the sandwich. “Eat it.” Dean pointed to it as if Sam could somehow have missed it inches from his face.
Sam ate it. By the time he’d finished it, Dean was curled on his side, facing away from Sam, breathing evenly. Crunching up the paper, Sam tossed it to his bedside table, shuffling down onto his bed. He felt a little raw, chest hollowed out, like a corkscrew had pinned his ribcage and twisted and yanked it all out.
The wind outside the window sounded loud in the quietness of their shared room. Sam hugged his pillow, breathing very slowly, not sure if he was on the verge of tears again or teetering on the edge of something vaster, emptier, colder.
He must have slept for he woke to the sound of voices. Dad’s stern one, just outside the bedroom door, “He needs to get up, now. You boys are training this morning.”
Then Dean’s voice, held low, quiet, as if he didn’t want to wake Sam up. “He barely ate yesterday, and he’s not been sleeping, can’t it wait?”
“No, Dean. It can’t. You know it can’t. Get him up. I want you both out back in five. Understood?”
“Yessir.” Crisp. Sam expected nothing less. Though, he was surprised Dean had noticed his sleeplessness and spoken up about it. Not that dad cared.
Dad retreated down the hall. Sam sighed, rolling over just as Dean approached his bed.
“Dad says –”
“Yeah. I heard. I’m up.”
Sam trained that morning. Felt ill after. Shaky and weak-legged. Like he’d overdone it. They’d trained hard, but no harder than usual. Perhaps it showed on his face, or in his expression, for Dean glanced over to him from the impala, dad and Bobby crowded around it, too, fixing something or tinkering or whatever it was that they did with the car all the time.
“You good, dude?” Dean had left the little half-circle around the car, joined Sam on the steps, a line forming between his eyebrows. “And before you try to lie to me, don’t. You look ill. Pale as a ghost. If you’re not careful dad’ll be hunting you next.” It was a weak attempt at a joke. Sam gave a tight-lipped smile, shifting his butt over on the stair when Dean make to plump himself down next to Sam. “Talk to me, Sammy.” He implored, kinder than Sam had expected.
Sam lied. Sam hated himself a little for it. A niggling, barbed-wire through his lungs, piercing and poking and hurting. But he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling. He certainly couldn’t begin to explain it. Whatever it was.
“I’m just tired.”
“Yeah, no shit. Is it the nightmares?”
“I don’t have nightmares.” Folding his knees into the crooks of his elbows seemed a good way of folding into himself. Sam’s heels hit up against the step below him, jammed hard into it, he rested his chin atop the back of his wrist, watching Bobby chuckle about something, his dad smiled back, warmer with old Bobby than Sam could ever remember him being with him.
A vicious little tug behind his ribs made him blink, looking away from them, down at the denim over his knees. He felt Dean’s shoulder brush against his as the older teen adjusted himself on the step, sighing. He sounded annoyed. Sam’s hackles were up instantly.
“Well, I don’t.” He snapped, primly.
“Dude, don’t get your knickers in a knot. I’m not mad at you.”
Sam risked a glance at Dean from under his lashes, out the corner of his eye, judging, assessing his side-profile. In the bright morning light Sam thought he saw the hint of stubble, a smudge of it at Dean’s jawline. He was old enough now, Sam mused. Seemed odd to him somehow. Made Dean appear far more grown-up than ever before.
Dean wasn’t watching him, he was staring at their dad, a heavy frown on his lips. Something in Sam’s chest loosened. He believed Dean’s words. Knew, too, without confirming it that it was dad that was bothering Dean, dad and his strict, drill sergeant way. Absolute. Stringent. He commanded, they followed.
“Sorry about yesterday, how I was.” He felt he should mention it. He was rude to Dean. Ruder than he’d ever been. Harsh, foul-spat words and cold looks. Sam didn’t know why he acted that way recently.
“Don’t sweat it.” Dean jiggled his leg, knee bouncing up and down, heel of his boot tapping against the step below them. Sam knew him well enough to know he was uncomfortable. Tentative, even. Sam didn’t push it, but when Dean sighed again, kicking his legs out long in front of him, Sam was ready for his next words.
Kinda.
“Dad and Bobby are going on a hunt tonight. Might be gone a few days. Depends how straight forward it is. So, we’re staying here. Dad’s orders.”
“Oh.” Not what Sam had expected. Not really.
He thought maybe Dean would mention the spanking or something like that. Something about their dad. A small part of him was relieved it was something so mundane. Yet, another part of him, some small, needy part that twitched and quivered and writhed with loneliness wished desperately that Dean would bring it up. Tell him it wasn’t his fault. Say again that dad was wrong for it. Anything. Something.
“You cool with that?”
“Do I have much choice?” Sulky. Sam heard it. Dean made some sort of noise, cross between a scoff and a huff. Sounded like he was trying to cough something up or choke something down. Sam peered over at him; Dean was watching him with a crooked grin on his lips. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Dean, what?”
“Nothing. Just don’t let dad see you doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Sulking like that. Thought you’d like some time apart from him. Plus, you get to spend some one-on-one time with your awesome big brother.” A wider grin, a flash of his teeth, neat and straight and Sam rolled his eyes and looked away.
“Why are you staying? You normally go with dad.”
“Bobby’s going.” A shrug of his shoulders. Nonchalant.
“So? There are four seats in the impala, Dean.”
“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”
“Then why stay?” Sam pressed. He already knew.
“To keep you company.” Liar.
“To babysit, you mean?”
Whatever Dean might have said in reply was interrupted by the crunch of boots and dad calling out to them. “Dean, make sure you salt the doors and windows. Double check them before bed, too. Sam, I want you to brush up on your Latin, Bobby’s got a few books he’ll lend you. Alright?”
“Yessir.” Said Dean.
“Yes, sir.” Muttered Sam.
It had been a while since the two of them had stayed behind. Mostly, Sam was used to staying back. Waiting. On tenterhooks. Dean had started hunting regularly with dad after he turned seventeen. But even before then, he’d join a few times, leaving Sam alone in whatever motel room they were renting at the time, in whatever town they’d traced a hunt to.
“You want something to eat?”
Sam looked up from the sprawling page of Latin, blinking it into focus, only now realising Dean was standing over him, close, frowning down at him.
“Huh?”
“Food? You want some? I’ve asked you like a thousand times. You that into,” he leaned forward, lifting the cover of the book up to squint at the title. A jumble of Latin scrawl. “Uh, whatever that is. Good huh?”
“Not really.”
“Food?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Dean made Spaghetti O’s and slightly burnt toast. They ate at the table.
“What’re they hunting?” Sam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, peering up at Dean from under the flop of his fringe. Hesitant to ask in case Dean shut him down.
But Dean wasn’t dad and he sighed, spooning up some O’s and taking a bite. “You really wanna know?” he raised his eyebrow.
“I asked, didn’t I?”
A wry sort of grin crooked its way onto Dean’s lips. He huffed out a puff of laughter. “Yeah. Alright. Dads after a succubus. Or rather, a whole lot of them.”
“Succubi? Why? Is that what he’s running from?”
Dean purposefully took a large bite of his toast, crunching it loudly, a spray of crumbs over his plate. Sam waited for him to chew and swallow. “Don’t know.”
“Bullshit. Tell me, Dean. I know dad told you.”
“You push too much, you know that, Sammy? It’s why you and dad are always at odds. You can never just let things be.”
It wasn’t meanly said. Just an observation from Dean. Yet, Sam felt it like a slap across his cheek. “I’m not pushy.” He muttered, folding his arms on the table, jerking his hair out of his eyes to better give Dean a filthy look.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, Sammy. Look,” Dean pushed his bowl away and leaned over the table, as if sharing a secret with Sam, low-voiced. “Don’t let on I told you this, but yeah, it’s what’s got dad pissing himself. Succubi aren’t anything to mess with but this lot seem… I don’t know, different.”
“Different how?” Sam wanted to know.
“I don’t know, Sam. Just different.”
“Is that what dad said?”
He must have said it a bit derisively, for Dean sat back in his chair, rolled out his shoulders, cracked his neck with a sharp movement. “Yeah, Sammy. That’s what dad said. And he’s serious about it. You know he wouldn’t run if it wasn’t necessary. I don’t know what happened, but it’s got him spooked.”
“I wasn’t having a go.” Sam said, feeling hurt by the tone Dean had used on him. Firm and brooking no argument.
“It’s hard to tell sometimes.” Dean shrugged. Not mad. Not even annoyed.
Sam’s shoulder was aching. A dull throb. He shifted his position for the umpteenth time that night, rolling onto his back, exhaling roughly. More than a little annoyed by the scarcity of sleep lately.
Beside him in the other bed he heard the slow, soft breaths of Dean, blissfully unaware of Sam’s struggles to catch some shut-eye.
They’d checked all the salt lines. Double-checked that all the doors were locked and the house secure before falling into their beds. Dean had drifted off within minutes. Sam had lain awake. He wasn’t even sure how long it had been that he’d been pretending to sleep, hoping to trick his body into actually doing the thing.
He didn’t want to check the time. The night was crawling by, as slow as a wet week, a trickle of sand through a tightly clenched fist.
Scrubbing his palm over his face, Sam made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. This was getting beyond a joke. He’d die of sleeplessness at this rate, surely. Something had to give.
A scrape somewhere in the house. Could have been a branch knocking against the side of the house. A shutter blown against the window pane. Could have been a lot of things, and in hindsight Sam shouldn’t have slipped out of his bed on tiptoe feet to go and check it out.
Because what it was turned out to be something he was wholly unprepared for. Though, really, it shouldn’t have taken him by surprise. Not when dad and Bobby were out on a hunt for said creature. Not when salt line or locked doors were useless against that same creature.
Still, as the thing came barrelling for him from the kitchen, Sam wasn’t ready. Like a game of tag he hadn’t agreed to participate in. Dragged abruptly into the chase and his heart threw itself up into his throat, his pulse galloping at such a speed his head felt dizzy.
“Shit,” he cursed, throwing himself backwards into a stumbling run. “Shit!” again, louder. Then, “Dean! Dean, help!” because he wasn’t prepared to be lunged at by some ghastly looking woman. Her skeletal figure over-long, her features warped. All wrong. A mimicry of humanness. Hardly beautiful at all. Terrifying.
And how the hell was he supposed to think rationally when she screeched behind him, a warbling, spine-chilling sound that surely had to have woken Dean, if Sam’s shouting hadn’t. Yet, as he dodged through the living room, the thing right behind, dogging his every move, scuttling at his heels just about, Dean was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, as Sam threw himself into the hallway, he realised it was only himself and the succubus hurtling around the old house. The solitary sound of his own breathing, high and ragged in his throat, the clamour of his footfalls, the clumsy hit of his palms against the wall as he made for the bedroom, too breathless now to cry out, though surely, surely Dean could hear the frightening thing behind Sam, wailing as she was.
Sam’s palms smacked roughly against the bedroom door, a stinging slap that reverberated all the way up to his elbows, his shoulders, as he burst into the room, gasping after his lost breath only to lose it all over again at the sight of another succubus atop Dean’s bed. Atop Dean.
This one wasn’t as dishevelled as the one that chased Sam. It looked exactly like a human woman, more beautiful, perhaps. With pale skin and flowing brunette hair and it moved over Dean’s prone, sleeping body, rutting gently against him, whispering things Sam couldn’t hear over the pounding of his pulse.
“Hey!” he cried out and the succubus’ head snapped sharply, too-quickly, in his direction, a sneer upon her lovely face. Her eyes were pitch. No colour. Nothing human about them. “Get away from him.” Sam told it, knowing full well it wouldn’t just hop off his brother with a ‘oh, dear me, so sorry about that, I’ll be on my way’.
Still, he didn’t expect it to smile; a widening of its mouth, the corners of its lips tucking up strangely, wrongly, a distorted version of pleasantness. A cold wire of ice scraped down Sam’s back, chilling him, a thud of dread in his stomach.
He held his ground, though he felt the shaking of his leg, the dampness in the hollows behind his knees. Felt, too, the air of the room cool, a coldness that was unnatural, settling about him, raising the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck.
“I think not.” The succubus said, rasping out the words, that same creepy smile held in place on its face.
Dean whimpered. A soft, stirring kind of noise. Not pain. Not discomfort. Sam’s throat felt dry when he looked down at him, seeing the fine sheen of sweat on his brother’s forehead, the way his neck arched just so that his Adam’s apple was thrown into stark contrast.
“He wants it.” Its voice was like nails on a chalk board to Sam.
“No,”
“Yes,” it purred. “But you are not swayed as such.” A curious little tilt to its head, a cascade of the glossy brown hair over one bare shoulder.
“I’m not asleep.”
“No, but you do not need to be wrapped in slumber to fall victim to our allure. You see us for how we truly look, do you not?”
From behind Sam came the other one, skirting into the room like some disturbing ill-fitting visage trying and failing at resembling a human. Sam took a step away from it, but it made no move to approach, only watched him from its half-crouch, naked, its too-pale, greyish skin stretched waxy over its sharp angled body.
“Strange,” said the one over Dean. “Strange little human boy.”
“Get off my brother.” Sam gritted out through his teeth. Ignoring the implications of his strangeness and his slightness. It hadn’t been said to rile him, it was only an observation, which was more unnerving if he were honest. When the succubus didn’t do as Sam bid, he moved forward, not exactly sure what he was planning on doing, and shouted, “DEAN, WAKE UP!”
“He won’t. Not until I’ve finished him with him.”
“Get off him, right now.”
It laughed at him then, a low, purring sort of amusement, an itch down Sam’s back, static, sitting so wrong with him that he found he took a step back. “Oh, how cute, he thinks he can order us,” it got up, slinking off the bed in a slow, eerily smooth way. Flicking its long hair over one shoulder, eyes settled keenly upon Sam.
Sam found himself backing up further as it approached him. The second one skittered about, keeping to the wall, not quite approaching him, and not going towards Dean either, but watchful and somewhat more wary than the one moving nearer to Sam.
“You know we’re hunters, right?” he said, though it lacked any real bite.
The creature smiled that same wide-lipped smile. Sam found his stomach turning over, disturbed by it. “Of course… John Winchester’s boys. Why do you think we’re here? Mhm? He’s busy chasing shadows.”
“You set him up?” Dad wouldn’t be happy about that. Sam almost felt sorry for the succubi. Did they truly believe they’d outwit John Winchester?
Though, surely, they had, for Sam was on the backfoot, helpless to do much of anything but make chitchat with the damned things, while Dean was stuck in dreamland and Bobby and dad were off on a goose-chase.
They’d managed to give dad the run-around, which wouldn’t bode well for them. And, Sam reckoned, himself. For he was out numbered and out-matched, having never hunted a succubus before, let alone two of them. He hadn’t the first clue what he was supposed to do to kill them. He’d not covered that in training or theory. Though, he’d seen a few notes about them in Bobby’s book collection, nothing gave him the edge in this situation.
“Mhm, maybe…” it said, off-handedly, as if it were growing bored. It sided up closer to him, so close Sam could almost believe he could feel its heat. This close he saw the blackened eyes, the unnatural set of its face. Not quite right. Uncanny. More unsettling up close and he backed up another step, dismayed when his back hit the wall.
“Why is he different?” the second one said, crouched low to Sam’s left. He didn’t look to it, keeping his eyes on the one drawing nearer from the front. Were they hemming him in? They’d not attacked, but Sam knew enough to know they hunted the sleeping, not the awake. So maybe they couldn’t do much damage to him? It was a feeble thought. Weak reasoning. But he had little else to go on.
“Why are you different?” the one before him questioned. “You are not so easily swayed, are you?”
Sam didn’t know why he was immune… if immune was the right word. It was definitely confusing the succubi.
“Do you prefer blondes?” it asked him, seemingly genuinely interested. Even before Sam could reply it had begun to morph, a slither of its features, shifting from the dark-haired woman to a fair-haired one. Though the face was still off. Not quite human in its appearance. It smiled at him, cocking its head to one side, a slip of sleek blonde hair down one shoulder. “No, not blondes.” A shrewd twist of its lips. “Boys, then? That would make sense.”
“No,” Sam uttered, but whatever else he might have said was cut short by the sound of the front door slamming open.
“Dean? Sam!”
Sam’s legs almost gave out at the unmistakeable sound of their dad’s voice bellowing through the house. He heard Bobby’s too, calling for him and Dean. Dean didn’t stir at all, despite the ruckus, but the succubi did, freezing in place with a wide-eyed look at Sam. The one to his left made some sort of keening noise, then they both leaped into action, going to the bedroom window in unison, throwing themselves through it, heedless of the glass shattering around them.
The breaking of glass must have alerted dad and Bobby, for they came storming into the room; dad held his gun at the ready, as if it would do much against a succubus. Short of knowledge on them as he was, even Sam knew a bullet wasn’t going to take one out.
They both dashed right past Sam, pressed to the wall beside the doorway as he was. Dad went to Dean, shaking him awake roughly, though it took longer than it should have, and Dean’s voice was considerably slurred when he spoke.
“W’ats goin’ on?”
“Where are they?” dad was focused in on the hunt. Voice pitched low, louder than it neared to be though. A command thrown at Dean’s face with all the brutality of a punch.
“W’eres who?” Dean asked, shaking his head as if it would detach the sleepiness from his skull.
“They went out the window.” Or through it. Sam didn’t add the last part. He’d have expected his dad to put two-and-two together, but he supposed the adrenaline could addle one’s head when rushing into a situation.
Both dad and Bobby turned sharply to spy Sam slumped against the wall.
“When?” dad barked at him, though Sam saw the knitted-up brow he wore for all of a second. Something had confused him, or concerned him. Sam wasn’t sure which.
“Just before you came running in here. They heard you and bolted.”
“Shit,” dad swore, foul-mouthed. He swore again, even as Bobby darted past Sam and out the room to see what he could find. “You won’t catch them now.” Dad called after him. “They’ll be long gone.”
“Where? – fuck – what the hell happened?” Dean was losing the succubus-induced haze rapidly. He was sitting up properly now, scanning the room; the broken window, gaping like a monster’s maw. Dad standing with his gun held by his side, hard-eyed. And Sam, a small thing against the wall, pale and dishevelled. “Sammy, you good?” he was out of bed in an instant, moving to grip Sam’s shoulders.
“I’m fine, De,” Sam shifted away from him.
“Did they attack you too?”
No. Well, not really. Not how they were attacking you, anyhow. Again, Sam kept quiet. Confused and no small bit embarrassed to admit they’d had no effect on him whatsoever. What was wrong with him? Dean had practically been high off the succubi’s energy, even now, standing in front of Sam as he was, Sam saw the blurred look in his eyes, the blown-out pupils, the flush to his cheeks.
Sam had had only cold dread and disgust.
Bobby returned to the room shaking his head, “Got away,” he told them.
“Though they would.” Dad said, then swore again. “They played us.”
“Like a fiddle.” Bobby agreed.
Succubi were first noted in hunter circles in the late 1300s. Sam suspected they were around before that though. Just undocumented. Folk law, perhaps. Known of but not truly tangible. Not until one decided to mess with a hunter. Sam only knew this because he’d been given a book from Bobby’s library to read up on them.
Succubare – Latin, to lie beneath.
Though, it hadn’t been lying beneath Dean, had it? But on him. Perhaps, in whatever dream it had given Dean the position was flipped? Sam frowned, steadying the book on his lap as the impala crested a rather sharp speed bump. He wasn’t sure why but he found his stomach crunched up tight at his wandering thoughts.
No quite disgust. Not exactly displeasure, either. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it all. Finding Dean so helpless and vulnerable. Seeing the way he’d been out of it for a good few hours after. Glossy-eyed and distracted thoughts.
He’d helped dad pack, determined to be involved in it all despite the fact he wasn’t quite in reality. Dad had told him to sit his arse down and enlisted Sam to help packing.
Off on the road, again. It never really ended. Sam had hoped they’d have stayed with Bobby a little longer. It was familiar if nothing else. But dad was insistent they move on, whether they were tracking the succubi or fleeing them, Sam wasn’t entirely sure.
He didn’t bother asking. Too afraid to start something by accident. And with Dean dazed and dad on edge, Sam felt it wiser to hold his tongue.
No one had mentioned Sam’s miraculous immunity to the succubi. Though, dad had questioned him a bit the next morning over breakfast, toast and jam courtesy of Bobby. Dad nursed a dark coffee, he nursed a frown also, as he listened to Sam’s recount.
“You woke at a good time,” he’d commented, and said no more.
Sam wanted to ask him if it was normal that they didn’t affect him. Being awake shouldn’t have changed anything. The book he’d been reading said as much; succubi preferred hunting those in slumber but it wasn’t a necessity. They could seduce men when they were very much alert and awake.
So, how come they couldn’t with him?
That thought plagued him all the way out of Sioux Falls. And dogged him until they arrived at the little town of Dell Rapids. Ate at him enough that by the second night in the quaint and comfortable little motel room they’d acquired, Sam thought to hell with it, and asked Dean what it all meant.
“What do you mean?” Dean said around a mouthful of his burger, the melted cheese oozed out the side with a glob of ketchup.
Sam almost said never mind, doesn’t matter, but dad was out collecting supplies – guns? Groceries? Sam didn’t know. Could be either, or both – and he’d not have another chance with it being just the two of them for a while, so he manned up with a quick intake of breath.
“I mean, you know how it affected you?” a muffled yeah from Dean as he shoved in a handful of fries. “W-well,” Sam swallowed, clearing his throat to dislodge the stutter. “Well, how come I didn’t end up all out of it like you?”
“Dude, I wasn’t all out of it.” Dean protested.
“Yes, you were. You could hardly walk straight.”
“Mmh.” Dean shrugged it off, taking another bite of his burger. Sam picked at the paper wrapper of his own burger, not hungry. “Dunno. Could’ve had the edge on them because you were awake.”
“The book says it shouldn’t matter.” Dean would know it didn’t matter, too. He was clued in on them, had read about them years ago, and hunted a stray one when he’d first started hunting fully. Sam really wasn’t sure what Dean’s angle was. Pretend it wasn’t odd that Sam was left unaffected? Or did he just believe that it was possible not to be swayed by them when awake.
“Yeah, well, just be thankful you weren’t affected. Could have ended badly. They’ll drain you pretty quick. You interrupted the one on me, so that helped. Probably would have been out of it longer had you not. Not that I was out of it to begin with.” Dean back-tracked, played it off with another shrug, the leather of his jacket crinkling.
“I should have been though.” Sam heard himself say, small-voiced. Very confused. More so now that Dean was side-stepping the issue.
Dean sighed, putting down his half-eaten burger, and set Sam with a look that made Sam’s neck itch. Uncomfortable. “Look, dude, if you’re so set on being some succubi’s play-thing –”
“God, Dean, that’s not what I’m getting at.” Sam pushed away from the two-seater table, leaving his burger and fries. The storm-off was somewhat dulled by the fact he could only really go as far as the furthest single bed, which was barely five strides away.
Sam hovered by it. Not sitting. It was the one dad had claimed anyway.
“I know it’s not.” Dean said from the table, still watching him, burger untouched.
Sam felt a fissure of unease splinter up his spine. He couldn’t place why.
“Am I wrong?” Sam asked, surprising himself with the soft question. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by it.
But Dean was quick in answering, “Don’t overthink it, Sammy. You’re not wrong… in any way. Okay?”
There was something more under the surface. Something Dean left unsaid. Unimplied. Sam couldn’t fathom what it was, though he felt he should have known. Felt it was surely a flashing neon sign brightly-lit in front of his eyes that he was blind to.
“Yeah, okay.” He said somewhat tentatively.
“I mean it, Sammy,” Dean pressed, quirking his eyebrows up. “You’re not wrong, just different… and that’s cool, too. Y’know? Chicks dig different… and well,” he paused, scratching at his jaw, looking down at his unfinished burger for a moment as if trying to find the words he wanted to say. “And y’know, other people… also… dig it. I guess. Look,” a roll of his shoulders, Sam had seen him do that gesture countless times, a sort of physical stripe-off of his thoughts, resetting himself, a stall almost, to collect his thoughts. “All I mean is, it’s fine, Sammy. You’re fine. Nothing’s wrong with you. Aside from your abnormally large brain. Freakishly large, you know that right?”
“Whatever, Dean,” Sam retorted with a huff of amusement.
“You finishing that?” a nod towards Sam’s untouched burger. Sam resisted the urge to mention he’d not even started it. But instead shook his head and flapped his hand at it.
“You can have it.”
Dean was already snatching it. “You want your fries at least?”
“Not really.” They’d been subsisting off of takeaways since leaving Bobby’s. Greasy burgers, sugary Coke, an ungodly amount of over-salted fries. Every. Goddamn. Meal.
Sam’s stomach felt sore just thinking about choking down another meal of it. He’d rather skip a meal then torture his insides further. He didn’t know how Dean did it, gulping it all down. And still managing to keep in shape.
He’d filled out in the last six months. Pure muscle too. It bulked out his shoulders, made his leather jacket fit just so. Sam had been quietly jealous of him, for a while at least, until he realised Dean was gaining the muscle from his frequent hunts and extra training now that he was old enough to become a fully-fledged hunter. Then, Sam decided he didn’t mind as much.
He was a far cry from unfit himself, though he was short and thin, which had never really bothered him until recently. Until Dean had shot up in height and filled out and started matching dad in boot size. He’d never admit it out loud, but Sam felt the physical difference keenly, felt the shift in how he was treated because of it too.
Dad pushed him hard during training sessions, often referring to Dean as the desired outcome. You’ve got to sprint faster, Sam, he’d say with a note of irritation in his voice, Dean can run two laps before you’ve finished one.
Yeah, and Dean’s legs are longer. He’s been training more than me. He actually wants to be a hunter. Sam never said his comebacks. He’d just bite his lip and dig a little deeper into his reserves, push his watery legs harder, ignore the stitch gnawing at his side and stay quiet.
Sam had spent many nights praying to whatever benevolent higher power that might be out there – and surely there was one, to balance out all the evil – to grow taller. To get better at training. Better than Dean. Better even than dad. To show them he was capable and worthy.
Yet, he’d wake up still the shortest, the slowest, the weakest.
He’d tell himself that he didn’t even want to be a hunter anyway, and in many respects that was the truth; he wanted to study and go to college and university, to have a normal life. A safe life. But on the other hand, he desperately longed for his dad’s pride. Dean’s even. To fit in with his dad and brother and have a place to belong to.
He always felt torn between two worlds. The natural and the supernatural. He wasn’t sure where he’d end up yet.
When dad returned, he had both guns – plus ammo, a hefty bag of salt, which Sam promptly mentioned wouldn’t do shit in keeping out succubi much to Dean’s and dad’s annoyance, a collection of odd little keyring charms – and groceries.
“I got the basics.” He said, lumping the two plastic bags onto the small table. It wobbled just a fraction. “We’re not staying here long.”
We never do, Sam wanted to say. He busied himself with putting away the groceries. Which is to say he neatly arranged them on the bench. It was mostly cereal. A carton of milk. A few bags of snacks. Nothing substantial. No perishables. If they had to up and leave at the drop of a hat then it would be a waste of money.
Sometimes Sam convinced dad to get some fruit. It wasn’t like John Winchester was purposefully feeding his boys shit food. He was in a situation that most people couldn’t – and never would – comprehend.
Still, Sam found it difficult not to scowl at dad over his bowl of lucky charms for dinner. Sickly sweet. The milk more so when he gulped the dregs down. His stomach grumbled, rebelling, very much unhappy about a sugar-filled dinner. But he said nothing. Kept his tongue still. His complaints firmly behind his teeth.
He slept almost not at all that night. Tossing and turning. Partly because of the sugar, partly because he’d eaten less than usual with such an unappetizing menu on offer, but mostly because he was thinking about what Dean had said… or didn’t say, rather.
There’d definitely been the implication of something. Of Sam being… different. Well, that bit had been said in no uncertain terms. Sam knew it already. Knew it like he knew the back of his hand.
He wasn’t like dad or Dean. Wasn’t a hunter. Not really. Not at heart. He didn’t think he ever could be. He was struggling to live up to their expectations already. He was four years off turning seventeen and he dreaded it. Because that would mean he had to be a hunter.
It wasn’t just training, or researching. It was in the field, on the job, face-to-face with vengeful spirits, ghastly creatures, creatures Sam had read all too much about, hated to think about, had nightmares about, and it frightened him no small bit that the moment he was turned loose into the fray, he’d crumble.
That his knees would give out when faced with some horrid thing. That the smell of sulphur would choke him, fill him up, consume him. Taint him. Change him.
Sam blinked at the grain of the table top, pulled abruptly from his thoughts by a heavy hand on his shoulder. He hadn’t startled, but it’d been a close thing.
He looked up and around, meeting dads stare, the subtle hint of expectation behind it.
“Stumbled across a case in this town,” he said as way of leading into the conversation. Sam wasn’t sure why he was being told and not Dean, who was currently whistling away in the shower. But he stayed quiet and widened his eyes to show he was interested.
Dad slipped his hand from his shoulder and sat opposite him with a sigh. “The usual run-of-the-mill haunting. Upset ghost, holding on and unwilling to move on.”
“Oh,” what else was he supposed to say?
Dad scratched at his jaw, the stubble was thicker now, his eyes looked tired. “I’ve got my hands full up with these damned succubi. Bobby and me both.”
“He’s still helping then?”
“Mhm. Doing what he can. Bringing a few others on board. Might be a nasty fight when it comes down to it. But,” he stopped himself, as if realising it was Sam he was relaying it all to, and not his perfect soldier son, Dean. He cleared his throat. “Well, it’ll work out. But I want you and Dean on the ghost case.”
Sam’s whole body went cold, as if he’d plunged into an ice bath. He stared a moment, not quite comprehending the statement. “B-both? Both of us?”
“It’s a two-man job. One to dig. One to burn.”
It was never a two-man job. Sam knew this. Dad had dealt with so many salt-and-burns alone that Sam had lost count. So, why now was he throwing Sam into the mix? Had he somehow heard Sam’s previous thoughts? His doubts.
Sure, ghosts were tame compared to some things they hunted, but Sam was thirteen, he really shouldn’t be out in the field.
“B-but,” his damn stutter. He swallowed, taking a breath in through his nose to still his racing thoughts. “But what if something goes wrong?”
“It won’t.” Dad said, then seemingly reading Sam’s concern from his face alone, added, “Dean will be with you. He knows what to do. It’s old news for him. He’s done so many.”
Yeah, Sam knew this too. Remembered the first salt-and-burn Dean had done, recalled the pungent stench of acrid smoke and earth scent of dirt and wood and something musky, sinister. Dean he been exuberant, bouncing off the walls just about, recounting it all. The ghost had shown up, tried to scare him and dad away, shrieking.
Sam had goosebumps just thinking about it.
“Does Dean know?”
“He will.”
“What about you and Bobby? Why can’t you do it?” it sounded petulant. Sam heard the note of desperation in his voice. Hated it. Hated the unsettled feeling he had in the pit of his stomach.
“We’ve got a lead on the succubi; we’ll be following that up before we leave town. We won’t have time to sort the ghost out.”
“Dean could do it alone, couldn’t he?” Logically Sam knew he could. So why was dad insisting he tag along?
Dean fumbled out the bathroom in a flurry of steamy air and sandalwood deodorant, damp towel draped over one arm, the other straightening his rumpled t-shirt, his hair was wet and messy, stilling dripping water. He paused at the two sets of eyes on him, flashing dad a look as if to silently ask, what’s up?
Dad must have known, for he said, “You and Sam will take a case, a simple salt-and-burn, tonight, while Bobby and I follow that lead we got.”
“Okay…” Dean sounded hesitant. He flicked a look at Sam. A fleeting thing that Sam would have missed had he not been watching Dean for his reaction. But it seemed to say all too clearly, Sammy? Why is Sammy coming along?
And again, dad must have read the same thing from Dean’s face, for he answered, “I won’t have Sam here alone. Not after last time. If they track us down again,” he left it unsaid. An open-ended statement.
“They don’t affect me though.” Sam said. He wasn’t even sure why he was defending himself, or if he needed to. Dad hadn’t sounded annoyed with him.
“Mhm.” Was all he got from dad.
Dean gave him a thin-lipped sort of smile, but Sam saw the uncertainty in his eyes, muddying the green.
“Where is it?” Dean asked and Sam tuned out as they talked specifics, his stomach in tight, painful knots.
Bobby dropped by the motel room that evening, rumbling up in his truck. Sam heard the squeak of the brakes before there was a knock at the door. He entered with a duffle bag that looked about ready to give up, its seams stretched beyond capacity. What it held Sam didn’t know. Didn’t ask.
He was busy preparing to leave with Dean, double checking their own supplies; salt, lighter, gasoline, and his dagger he’d gotten for his thirteenth birthday, a sturdy, sharp-edged blade and comfortable grip. It suited him nicely. He’d not had a need to use it though, outside of training.
“Won’t do much good against a ghost, dude.” Dean commented from his single bed. The covers were a mess, twisted and half on the floor. But Dean was sitting on it, fully decked out in his leather jacket and boots, prepared for their hunt.
Sam twisted the dagger around in his hand, watching the play of lamp light over the immaculate blade, a shine of reflected orange. Dean was right, of course. It’d do nothing against a spectre. But it strangely helped Sam feel a little less out of his depth.
“I know.” He said in reply to Dean.
“You boy are taking the impala.” Dean’s head shot up at that.
“What about you guys?”
Dad shrugged, “we’ll take Bobby’s truck. It’s less likely to get recognised. They know the impala.” He said with a bit of a frown.
Dean on the other hand looked positively elated. He flashed Sam a grin, straight white teeth and a cheeky look in his eye. Sam couldn’t help but smile back.
“Right then,” dad was saying, hauling up the over-stuffed pack Bobby had dragged in. He grunted with the effort.
“What’s in that thing? A body? Looked heavy enough.” Dean asked.
Dad shot him a rather shrewd look.
“It’s not… is it?”
“Focus on your hunt, Dean,” was all dad said in return. Which really didn’t dispute Dean’s observation. “We’ll meet back here. If we’re not back by dawn, you call pastor Jim, you hear?”
“Yessir.”
“Okay,” Sam said somewhat belatedly, but no one was paying him much mind. Dad and Bobby were hauling their supplies out to the Ford pickup and Dean was milling about, grabbing his own substantially smaller duffle bag which held their supplies. He cast Sam a look.
“You good, dude?”
Casually enough said, but his gaze lingered on Sam. He’d been standing by his bed, immobile, he realised, and he mentally shook himself. Get it together, the last thing you want to do is seem unprepared. But, he was unprepared.
It was one of the simpler jobs, salt-and-burns were commonplace. Hell, Sam had tagged along once, though he’d stayed in the car, watching out the back window, nose pressed to the glass, breath fogging up his sightline, trying to watch dad and Dean.
He’d seen the flare of flame, and even though the windows were all done up, he’d sworn he could smell the soot of the smoke.
“The hardest part is going to be the digging,” said Dean, off-handedly, swiping the impalas’ keys from the bench. “That shit hurts your back. I don’t know how dad does it. That reminds me, grab the shovels by the front door, will you? I get this stuff in the trunk.”
The shovels were new. One green-handled, the other black. Dad had dropped by the hardware a town over and grabbed them. Though, in hindsight Sam wondered why he didn’t just have Bobby bring a couple of his.
“He’s still young, John,”
Sam stopped outside the motel room, gripping the poles of the two shovels, pausing as Bobby’s voice groused from across the small parking lot. He peered over at the pickup and spotted both men standing beside it, the duffle bag safely stored away now, and dad’s arms were crossed over his chest. He looked displeased.
Sam held his breath, trying to hear clearer.
“He’s thirteen.” A crisp statement, as if it was the winning move on a chess board, concise. They were talking about him, surely.
“Aye,” Bobby agreed, straightening his cap a little. “Still a boy, yet.”
“It was the supreme, Bobby. It had no effect on him whatsoever.”
Ah, the succubi and their non-effect on him. But… Dean had said it wasn’t that strange, right? That Sam was just different. Was dad disappointed? He sounded disappointed. But Sam couldn’t fathom why he would be. Wasn’t it a good thing, in a round-about way that Sam hadn’t been affected? He’d been able to at least keep them away from Dean, for they were just as curious as to why they held no sway over him.
Do you prefer blondes? Boys then, that would make sense.
Sam’s stomach turned over, a slow flip, he found his breath hard to come by. Is that the reason? Did he like… boys? He hadn’t thought about it. But the succubi’s words came back to him, sly as anything. And he wondered if that was why dad seemed disappointed. Did he think Sam was… was, what? Gay?
“Like I said, he’s still young. These things don’t always come about quickly. Hell, I hardly thought about it when I was his age. Give the boy some time. He’ll come around.” Bobby nodded his head decisively, as though he was summing up the conversation. Filing it away. Then gave John a slap on the shoulder. “It’s a good thing he wasn’t affect that night. Saved his brother from more trouble because of it.” He added.
Sam didn’t hear dad’s reply, because Dean was exiting the motel room, duffle bag in one hand, keys in the other, looped over his index finger. He grinned again as he twirled the keys with a jingle.
“Get the door, will ya, Sammy.” He said over his shoulder as he made a beeline for the impala.
Sam got the door. Got the shovels, too, and threw them in the trunk.
Dad and Bobby followed the impala out the parking lot when they headed off. A two-car convoy of sorts. They turned off a few streets down with a honk of the horn.
Sam’s shoulders ached. A twinge tight between his shoulder blades. His arms felt ready to fall off, his fingers stiffened up from gripping the shovel handle so tightly and for so long. Grit in the lines of his palms, dirt embedded under his nails. In his nostrils. Coating his throat. It was dirty jobs. Hard work. Hot work.
He peered up through the fall on his fringe at Dean, who was likewise bent and busy at work digging up the grave. He didn’t seem half as breathless as Sam was. Though even in the darkness, dimly lit by the single torch they had propped at the edge of the hole they were shovelling, Sam could see the sheen of sweat on Dean’s forehead, the smudge of dirt along his jaw and cheekbone. He didn’t complain, though, so neither did Sam.
“You and dad do this a lot then?” he asked after they were at least halfway to the coffin. Surely, they were halfway at least. Sam’s back was starting to hurt. A pulling ache at the small of his back from bending and straightening and bending again.
Dean grunted; it might have been a chuckle even. “Yeah,” he dug the flat shovel head deep into the soil, easily throwing it aside, over his shoulder, with a spray of dark dirt briefly filtering out the torch light. “Dad hates the digging. Usually gets me to do most of it. Don’t know how he survived doing it himself before I joined him.”
No wonder Dean was filling out nowadays, with all the strenuous labour. Sam swiped his fringe out of his eyes with his sleeve, pushing it off his forehead to better see. The cool night air was pleasant against his face, though the further down they dug the less the wind reached them.
“How far do you reckon we’ll need to dig?” Sam asked, scooping a loose pile of dirt with his shovel and heaving it out.
“Not too much further. You want a break?”
Sam looked up from his dirt-covered shoes, Dean was resting his chin atop the back of his hand, which he draped over the end of his shovel, watching Sam with an odd expression.
“What?” said Sam, miffed because he didn’t immediately recognise the expression his brother wore.
“What do you mean what?” Dean shot back.
“What’s that look for?”
“What look?”
“The one you just had?”
“Dude, that’s just my face.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“You want a break or not? I can finish up the rest.”
“No,” Sam swiped his hair back out of his eyes when it tumbled back down, itchy against his sweaty forehead, crusted with dirt. “No, I’m good.”
“Alright, alright. No need to get your knickers in a twist.”
Sam shot his brother a narrow-eyed look. Dean held up his free hand, the one not resting on the shovel, as if in surrender.
“You’ve got that look about you.”
“What look?”
“Bratty look.”
“No, I don’t.”
“So do.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you weren’t looking at me all weird maybe I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, yeah. Alright. You helping or not? I can give you a leg up if you want to have a break. You can man the flashlight. It’s getting a bit harder to see this far down.”
“I can keep going.” Sam said, despite the fact his entire body was sore. His hamstrings complained when he got back into it, tight and overworked and it was purely stubbornness that kept Sam going. The fear of being seen as weak if he couldn’t do something so simple as dig up a grave.
You train with dad and Dean almost every day, you shouldn’t be this unfit. The biting thought kept him at it until one of their shovels hit something solid with a dull thump. Dean’s head shot up with a grin.
“Bingo. Hand me the stuff, will you.”
Sam stuck his shovel into the banked-up soil, skirting around the rectangular hole they’d made, to reach for the salt and matches and the little bottle of lighter fluid. It was just off to the side of the torch, and Sam’s fingertips barely grazed the corner of the salt packet. He grunted, on tiptoes now, reaching uselessly for the stuff.
“Come on, dude, we haven’t got all day,” said Dean. Then he made some sort of soft noise in the back of his throat, which made Sam look over his shoulder to see why. But Dean was right behind him and Sam had to pressed up against the dirt wall to avoid bumping into him.
“I had it, Dean,” he made to say, even as Dean reached for the stuff, plucking it down with no trouble.
“When, in a weeks’ time? A year, when you’d have grown an inch or two.” It wasn’t said meanly. Dean even grinned at him as he cautiously stepped back to the cracked open coffin. Sam swore he heard the whispered, “Short stuff.”
But before he could defend himself or even scoff at his brother, he felt his air around them chill. A ghostly sort of cold. Sam had felt it before. Dean was busy throwing the salt down, a sprinkle of white into the coffin, which Sam didn’t want to look too closely at in case he saw the remains. He thought he could see the yellowed lacy ruffle of a sleeve before he turned away under the guise of checking the flashlight.
He never got that far. A sweeping sort of filmy gauze was in front of him, static and soft and unnaturally cold. He blinked and the pale shimmer shifted in front of him, within the dug-out grave, and materialised into the shape of a young woman. Sickly thin, her elbows and knees were knobby. Her cheeks hollowed out. And her eyes were so very dark, a glimmer, reflecting Sam’s shocked face back to him and beyond Sam’s shoulder, he saw Dean turn.
“Shit, Sammy, move!”
Dean’s shout broke Sam out of his frozen surprise. Released his rigid muscles and he scampered backwards, tripping on the broken coffin under his feet, the heel of one foot plunging down suddenly. His stomach went, thrown into his chest, then into his throat as he fell, landing in the opened-up coffin.
He felt the crunch of bones under his backside, the protruding curvature of a skull against the middle of his back. He was only dimly aware of Dean rushing to light a match, only to realise his little brother was sprawled ungainly in the exact spot he needed to throw it.
“The lighter fluid, Dean!” Sam snapped, as if he wasn’t on the verge of tears, palms pressing into hard bits of bone; sharp in the delicate flesh of his palms. The dusty crunch and crack of them under him as he struggled to extract himself from the coffin made his stomach hurt, a sickening roil within him, even as his head lurched, terrified.
“Where is she? Where’s the ghost?” he cried out.
Dean wasn’t so frantic. He was swearing though, planting his feet either side of the coffin so that he stood over Sam, and reached down his free hand.
Sam took it, his palm slippery enough that Dean had to move his grip to Sam’s wrist in order to get enough leverage to haul him up. Sam staggered a bit, gripping Dean’s jacket with both hands, shivering from the utter disgust of being so close to the corpse.
“Dude,” Dean said with a huffed, trying to step out of Sam’s grip. “Let go so I can burn this thing.”
Sam let go. He felt his face flame, a hot flush. He felt stupid for his kneejerk reaction. Useless, as Dean splashed the lighter fluid over the jumbled-up corpse, added more salt for good measure, then turned to Sam.
“Up,” he said. Then bodily spun Sam with a grip on each arm. Sam stared at the wall of dirt in front of him, the twist of a gnarled root protruding out of the dark soil. Then Dean’s hands were at his hips. “C’mon, help me out, Sammy.”
Sam reached up and jumped just as Dean lifted him. It was enough to get him out the deep hole. The knees of his jeans were wet from the damp grass and stained from the earth after he crawled himself away from the desecrated grave. His fingers felt cold and stiff. Sore. He had blisters on his palms.
Dean hauled himself up and out along with the two shovels then threw a lit match into the grave with swift efficiency. It went up quickly. Quicker than Sam had expected. A great whoosh of heat and bright orange flames. The smell of dirt and lighter fluid deepening to one of burnt hair and smoke.
Somewhere in the graveyard a hollow, piercing scream went up. Sam shivered, goosebumps springing up along his arms at the sound. At the knowledge that it was the very same ghost he’d seen in front of him. Had she taken off through the graveyard to hide? Had she been afraid of what he and Dean had been doing in her grave?
She was a vengeful spirit, Sam reminded himself, she’d likely killed and haunted and caused all kinds of havoc. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been scared of them. More afraid than even Sam had been of her.
Dean was packing up their supplies, the salt, lighter fluid, matches, stuffing them into the duffel bag. He grabbed the flashlight, flicking it over Sam’s way, a slow up and down, appraising Sam’s state. Sam shifted on the ground, pushing his hair off his forehead, acutely aware of Dean’s stare behind the glare of the light.
“You hurt?”
“No,”
The flashlight went out with a soft click. Sam blinked in the abrupt darkness. Seeing the faint spots of light far off towards the street, where the impala was parked.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean it, Sammy. You good? Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m good, Dean.”
“Mhm.”
Did Dean not believe him?
“Here, I’m not carrying everything.”
Sam took the offered shovel, slung it over his shoulder like Dean did with his own.
It was only on the drive back to the motel that Sam’s stomach became tight, a knot at his centre, hard and distracting, as he wondered about how dad and Bobby were fairing with their job.
He watched the blur of darkened roadside slide past, listening to the purr of the motor, the occasional soft ticking of the indicator, wrapped up in his thoughts. Flitting between what had happened in the graveyard with the spirit – a wince as he recalled fumbling into the coffin, awkward, a childish reaction to the sudden appearance of the vengeful spirit they were burning – and the apprehension of what exactly dad and Bobby were doing. They’d not been forthcoming. Not with Sam anyway.
He glanced out the corner of his eye at Dean. It was dark in the cabin of the car, no street lights down this stretch of road, just the headlight and the road lines to guide them. His brother looked the same as ever, watching the road, lazily handling the steering wheel.
“What was the lead?” Sam asked, his voice came out quiet, softer than he’d intended, he cleared his throat, shifting his feet against the floor mat. It probably had dirt all over it. So would the seats. But dad never minded too much about those kinds of things. It came with the job. Sam was sure the upholstery had seen far worse than grave-dirt and salt.
“Huh?” Dean looked over to him, a fleeting glance, refocusing his attention back onto the night shrouded road.
“Dad said they had a lead – with the succubi stuff – what was it?”
“Dunno, dude.”
“He didn’t tell you?” that was hard to believe. Dad shared most things with Dean. Treated him more like a fellow hunter nowadays than his son. Sam would never admit that he harboured a nettle of jealousy over that. Wouldn’t let himself dwell on it too long, or he’d sour his own mood.
Dean adjusted his speed, squinting a little out the windscreen. Sam spared the road a brief look, seeing the murky greyness of fog spilling out into the road, creeping out from the stretching, grassy fields on either side of them.
“Where’d this come from.” Dean grumbled. It wasn’t very annoyed. It was very likely just a stalling tactic.
“Dean?” Sam prompted, turning in his seat to face his brother a bit better. Even in the dimness Sam saw Dean grimace.
Eddies of thick fog floated past Dean’s window, deepening the already black night. An eery backdrop. Sam felt a fissure of unease snake down his spine, a cold thing. Small and sinuous, yet it pinged Sam’s senses.
“Dean?” hesitantly said. Nothing to do with his previous question.
The impala shuddered, a choking grind of the engine. Stuttering. Jerking them in their seats until the impala gave up and slowed to a stop.
“The fuck,” Dean stepped on the gas. Twisted the key free. Plunged it back in, turning it with a snap of his wrist. Nothing. Only the crawling sense of dread that lingered in Sam’s body.
His heart thrummed, high in his chest, threatening to break out his ribcage and escape. He took in a steadying breath; it shivered in his lungs. Not very steady. Not very calming.
“What happened?” did his voice have to sound so high-pitched? Tight with disquiet. A tremble in his throat. “Didn’t dad and Bobby look it over?”
“Yeah. Nah, nothings wrong with the car,” Dean surmised, confident with his statement. Yet, Sam wished it had been as simple as that. Car trouble. A fault with the impala and not something more sinister, something supernatural.
But he couldn’t deny the ice in his bones. It clung to his spine. He found he didn’t want to move, to shift even a muscle in his seat, afraid is he did it would set off the lingering dread that settled like stones in the pit of his stomach.
Dean was undoing his seat belt with a sigh. Sam reached out for him, catching him by the wrist, wide-eyed as he leaned in towards him.
“What are you doing?!”
“Dude, chill, I’m going to check the engine. Maybe they missed something.” Even he didn’t sound sure of his own words.
Sam wondered if Dean felt the same creeping dread. The sickly feeling in his stomach. Clammy lungs and tight throat and Sam jerked hard when the wailing came. A horrid, mournful cry. Somewhere outside the impala, hidden in the swirl of fog and shadow.
“Shit,” Dean swore, then again, fouler. Filthy words that dad would have given him a stern look for using. Dean shot a filthier look out the front window, as if he might see what was out there. As if he could scare it off with a glare alone. “Wait here.”
“N-no, no, D-De – don’t,” Sam wouldn’t give up his grip on Dean’s wrist. He felt it twist in his grasp, the shift of tendons and muscle and bone and then Dean was reaching over with the hand Sam wasn’t wrestling with and taking a firm grip on Sam’s chin. Then, when Sam tried to twist his head away with a soft grunt in the back of his throat, the grip moved to his jaw, holding it steady, a pincher grip. Dean’s thumb digging into one side of his jaw, his fingers pressing painfully into Sam’s cheek.
“O-ow, Dean, s-s-stop, it h-h-hurts,” damn his stuttering; his words came out timid instead of angry.
“Hey,” Sam hadn’t heard Dean use that tone in a very long time. Not since Sam was much younger. His whole body tightened at the growling tone. So much like dad’s. Almost identical. He hated the way his instincts told him to sit straight and listen. “Stop it, Sammy. Calm down.”
“I am calm.” He was silently pleased his words came out stutter-free.
Dean looked unconvinced. “Bullshit. You’re stuttering and shaking like a leaf.”
“Fuck off.” Sam bit out, beyond caring how nasty he sounded, with the dread eating up his insides, and the cold air feeling like static against his exposed skin. The words had felt good though, bitten out between his gnashed teeth. Good, but misplaced.
Dean’s face hardened. Sam saw the tick at his jaw when he gritted his teeth. The green of his eyes seemed to darken. Again, it was reminiscent of dad. Sam sometimes forgot how alike they were; Dean treated him far differently than dad ever had. But, now, with Dean’s fingers holding his face hard enough to leave bruises, and Dean’s eyes narrowed into something frustrated, Sam found it difficult to separate the two of them.
Perhaps Dean saw something in Sam’s expression. Some slippery, soft emotion that flared Sam’s nostrils and widened his eyes. Dean let his grip relax, though he didn’t remove his hand entirely, just softened his touch, ducking his head a bit to look directly into Sam’s eyes.
“Stay focused,” he said. It was gentle, as if he were talking to a much younger Sam. Kind of how he’d speak to him when Sam would blubber about dad leaving for a hunt – when he’d been a lot younger, four, maybe five – and Sam found he hadn’t the ire in him to feel invalidated by the gentle tone.
In fact, it calmed him more than anything else could. Amid the fog and the chilled cabin of the impala, with the hovering presence lingering somewhere nearby. Sam felt a little curl of self-deprecation. How babyish was he that he needed his big brother to talk softly to him to calm him down. To make him feel safe.
“I’m focused.” Sam muttered. He hadn’t been though. He’d been panicky and the furthest thing from a composed hunter.
“Mhm,” Dean’s thumb loosened further, the pad of it a little rough against Sam’s jawline when he slipped his hand away, calloused from handling weapons, no doubt. From digging up graves. Bones of dead women. Remains of vengeful spirits.
“You think it’s the woman from the graveyard?” Sam asked, unbuckling his own seat belt.
“We torched her bones,” replied Dean. Though, it wasn’t quite an answer.
The cabin cooled significantly more. Ice in Sam’s throat. Numbing the tip of his nose and ears and making his fingers feel stiff.
“It sounds like her.” He said, even as something caught his attention from the back seat. A play of silver cobwebs, or so it had first seemed.
“Yeah.”
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
Sam didn’t want to look away from his brothers’ face. Watching the play of shadows that lingered under his jaw, draped down one side of his face. Seeing the moment Dean, too, picked up on the presence in the back seat. The way his broad shoulders tightened, an intake of his breath.
“It’s her.” Sam said, very quietly. As though he might whisper low enough that the woman sitting in the middle of the back seat wouldn’t hear him.
He couldn’t turn to look directly at her. But he saw her well enough out the corner of his eye. A pale, luminescent form that seemed to materialise further, deepening into clarity.
“Yeah.” Dean agreed.
The woman screamed, deafening, a buzzing in Sam’s head. Too loud. A bright, blinding sort of noise. And Sam’s mind was eclipsed. Turned over, then inside out. He cried out, reaching blindly for Dean. But the wailing was too much and his head hurt all over, a violent thrumming inside his skull.
What the hell? What’s happening! He thought, before blackness rose up, surrounding him, encasing him in the very sudden embrace of unconsciousness.